


Everybody Knows Your Name

by zarinthel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Gen, HP: Epilogue Compliant, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, sorry about that, soulmark but not soulmate, this is very melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6431848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarinthel/pseuds/zarinthel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So this was not going to be a thing, but then I thought about Draco Malfoy and his one word 'Yes' from Harry Potter and now there is a follow up. This is in the same universe as the previous chapter, so it is also epilogue compliant.</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [you will bleed to death with the pain of it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3916129) by [LullabyKnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LullabyKnell/pseuds/LullabyKnell). 



Were Harry to have Snape’s words written across his skin, they would be, “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” But Harry does not have Snape’s words upon his skin. In the end, Harry has only ever had three marks.

“Welcome!” The first proclaims. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts!” Harry likes this mark, even though he is no longer quite so fond of the the rather eccentric headmaster. The second is much starker. 

“Avada Kedavra!” It proclaims, simple and supposedly deadly. Harry has never liked this mark. If there is one thing he could say about his _lacking_ upbringing, it would be that he never found out what it meant until he had friends that he could trust to hold him as he cried. The third is an instruction.

“Now don’t forget to speak very, very clearly,” it says. Harry smiles when he thinks about Molly Weasley, who showed him what it was like to have a family, to give out love for no better reason than love was a wonderful thing. He is lucky that soulmarks require direct communication, or all he would have is her shouting at Fred and George immortalized on his skin. Harry winces. He has enough reminders of the dead and gone.

But there is no phrase from Severus Snape’s lips. It’s just as well, Harry thinks. He could do without a question that was designed to both apologize to him and humiliate him at the same time. 

But Harry also knows that he leaves many more marks than he receives, and he doesn’t know what to do with that information. It mostly makes him feel vaguely apologetic, and confusedly angry. He tries not to think about it. 

He’s seen more of his words than he can count, though. It mostly just makes him incredibly awkward, that so many people are immortalizing the really stupid shit that comes out of his mouth whenever he meets new people. 

But it is interesting, the parallels that pop up in the people that he talks to. He asked Draco, once everything was over and done. In hindsight, that had been a terrible idea, but he learned a lot about things it had never occurred to him to ask about. Apparently, his words were on a lot of Death Eaters. 

Draco’s lips had twisted into a sneer, but he had pulled back his own sleeve so that Harry could see more of his own handwriting, this time a simple, “Yes.” It was scrawled on his forearm, an unfortunate mirror to what still remained on his other arm. 

Harry still remembers his first encounter with Lucius Malfoy in great detail. Mostly he’s just embarrassed now, but he’s pretty sure that the older Malfoy has been walking around with the sentence, “Voldemort killed my parents,” for longer than Harry has been alive. What a thing to grow up with. It weirds him out, that his mark was on the Death Eater long before he ever took the Mark. 

He’s left a mark on Narcissa, too. “He’s alive,” it says. It is the only thing that he has ever said to her. 

It occurs to him later, when he’s drunk perhaps a bit too much, that he probably left a mark on Snape too. He doesn’t remember what he said to Snape’s first question. Something like, “I don’t know?” He winces. This is why he doesn’t like to think about soulmarks, it always makes him feel inadequate. 

He doesn’t feel inadequate when he’s with Ginny. She’s far too fierce, always looking towards the future and making sure that he doesn’t get mired into the past. Some of the many things he loves about her.

He’s seen Ginny’s mark. She only has one, and it’s not his. She doesn’t hide it, but neither does she flaunt it where her brothers can see. He sees it every night, though. 

“Hello, Ginny,” it says. “I’m Tom Riddle.” It’s innocuous in a way that Avada Kedavra will never be, but whenever Harry considers having her mark instead of his, he wants to take a shower and never come out. 

She must have been so happy when she met him, is all he can think. How amazed, that she has only one soulmate and she’s met him so early. How lucky she must have felt. 

Harry needs to stop drinking. It was Remus’s funeral, yesterday. They buried him next to Sirius, but there is nothing in Sirius’s grave except for the sandbags used to weight the coffin. Harry can go visit all of their graves now, James and Lily and Remus and Sirius. They’ve all been laid to rest in the same graveyard. They would have liked that, he hopes.

He hopes that the mirror of Erised has been destroyed. He doesn’t want to see how many more people will be staring out at him from behind the glass.

As is traditional, the morticians had recorded Remus’s soulmark when they were preparing him for burial. It’s the second time that Harry has ever seen his father’s handwriting. The first time, of course, was in Snape’s memories. Harry considers how bitter Snape must have been, having two generations of Potters on his skin without a reciprocal mark to show. 

Remus Lupin had had four soulmarks. One from James, one from Sirius, one from Peter, and one from Harry. Harry is pretty sure that Sirius had much the same. He doesn’t know, though. Sirius was gone before Harry ever managed to work up the courage to ask. 

Harry stares at the empty cup in front of him. He needs to get home, and he is far too drunk to safely apparate anywhere. _Home_ he thinks, and smiles helplessly. He has a home, and a family that loves him. His parents are proud of him, and he is, against all odds, still alive. He’s still meeting people who have his words scrawled across their skin, and that will probably never stop even when he’s an old geriatric.

All in all, he thinks, toasting his empty cup to the dead, he could have done much worse.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was not going to be a thing, but then I thought about Draco Malfoy and his one word 'Yes' from Harry Potter and now there is a follow up. This is in the same universe as the previous chapter, so it is also epilogue compliant.

Malfoy’s have always taken pride in only having a single soulmark. So, in that sense Draco is proud to be continuing the family tradition. However, his mark has always been so... plebeian. It's just a single word, a common “yes.” Draco isn’t worried, though. He’s always known that he is going to be one of the special ones who has one other person that only has his first words on their skin. As long as he manages to say something distinctive, there’s nothing to worry about. 

His parents have warned him it might be some time before he ever meets his soulmate, and that Malfoy’s do not acknowledge soul connections unless it is politically relevant to do so. 

Draco remembers the first day that the word became legible on his arm. He had immediately gone to show his parents his word, shiny and dark and new. Strangely, his father had seemed to care more about the placement of his tattoo on his right forearm. It did make his left forearm look kind of bare, in comparison. He had mentioned that maybe he would get a second mark on his other arm, to balance it out. His father had gone dead white, turned on his heel and left the room. Draco doesn't know what he did wrong. 

Anyway, he’s going to Hogwarts next year! He’s sure that he will meet his soulmate in Slytherin. He’s already got what he’s going to say all planned out.

Draco stalks away from Potter’s train compartment enraged and confused. That's twice now, that Harry Potter has said “yes” to him. He’s got an awful suspicion that will require he steal a sample of Potter’s hand writing. Simply to eradicate the possibility, of course. There’s no way that Potter is his soulmate. He didn’t even react to Draco’s words, and Draco can remember every detail of that conversation, and he _knows_ what he said was distinctive enough to get a reaction. 

He does, eventually, get a sample of Potter’s hand writing. He dismisses it, of course. There are tons of people with messy handwriting at Hogwarts. Snape certainly complains about it enough. 

And then he has the Dark Mark on his left forearm. _At least it's not unbalanced anymore,_ is the first thing that pops into his head as he stands in front of the Dark Lord, mildly hysterical from pain and fear and the knowledge his parents cannot protect him, could never protect him from this. The second thing he thinks is that he should have shown Potter his mark before he got this second, artificial one.

The third thing, that occurs to him much later is that if Voldemort’s mark was not his father’s one and only, and how _could_ it be his one and only, then who else could it be?

He finds out at after the war is over, and his father stands on trial. _Of course_ , he thinks. Of course it was Harry bloody Potter. And then he finds out what, exactly, his father’s mark says. “Voldemort killed my parents,” it says. It is really hard to claim innocence with a mark like that. But Lucius escapes jail time, with significant donations and a lot of furniture giveaways.

Generosity, his mother says. If Draco had his way, they would _burn_ everything that the Dark Lord has touched. It is probably a good thing that Draco does not have his way, or he might have accidentally burned down the entire mansion, and that would not do. That would not do at all.

Eventually, he does show Harry his mark. And Harry nods, like he had always expected that Draco had Harry’s mark written on his skin. And it is very rude to ask someone about their soulmarks if they don’t volunteer to show you. But Draco has never let politeness stop him from saying something to Harry Potter. 

And so he asks Harry about his soulmark. His _soulmarks_ , as it turns out. Harry has three soulmarks, and none of them are Draco’s. Draco _may_ have made a bitter remark about having trouble choosing who to date. This is, naturally, when Harry decides to tell him all about Ginny Weasley, one of the few people in Great Britain who _doesn’t_ have Harry’s words on her skin.

It’s... actually a thought that has never occurred to him, to seek love outside of the whole soulmate issue. He knows that it's _possible_ , his parents being an excellent example, but he had never thought about it in reference to himself. 

He rubs a hand over Harry’s mark, as is his habit. He... has never really been attracted to anyone, not really. He knows that he needs to have a child to inherit the Malfoy legacy, such that it is. But he doesn’t need love to produce an heir. 

His mother has been asking him what type of career he wants to pursue recently. His father has been conspicuously silent about the issue. If he’s being honest with himself, which he rather dislikes, he knows it's got to have something to do with talking to people, even if nowadays that means talking to people who dislike him. He’s sure he’ll figure something out. 

On a different note, Harry has left an open invitation to drop by and have a drink with him after work. That... was a pleasant surprise. There are a lot of things wrong with his life, but all in all he thinks that things have turned out much better than they could have. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please remember to comment below. I live for reviews, even short ones.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to LullabyKnell. Without them, this story would not exist. 
> 
> About Harry's soulmarks:
> 
> Dumbledore: Love is a choice  
> Voldemorte: Love is powerful  
> Molly: Love is a gift


End file.
